Many types of products are distributed to consumers on a rental basis. In particular, the popularity of renting media-based products, such as digital video disc (DVD) movies, video tapes, compact discs (CDs), software media, and so forth, continues to grow at a rapid pace. Typically, consumers rent products from a local store and then must return the products to the same store, i.e., to the point-of-rental. Alternatively, consumers can elect to purchase and keep these products.
Articles such as video tapes can also be rented from a machine, but the articles must still be returned to the machine, i.e., to the point-of-rental. Such machines are necessarily equipped with return bins to handle the returned articles.
Certain Internet-based companies allow a consumer to rent or buy media products on-line. Some of these companies offer services similar to book-of-the-month clubs in which a media product is periodically sent to a consumer on approval. The consumer can choose to keep the product for a period of time (or permanently), and pay the appropriate charges, or return the product and owe nothing. With this method of distribution, however, there is an inherent delay from the time the consumer selects a product to the time it is delivered to their home.
There is therefore a need in the art for a method of distributing products without delay, but which also provides a convenient means of returning the products.